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Jon Hilkevitch has been the Chicago Tribune's transportation reporter since 1997. He is responsible for covering every mode of transportation, both locally and nationally, although his primary focus is transportation news affecting the Chicago metropolitan region.

One day he might write a story about an expressway project, the next day about an airplane accident, the problem of Chicago Transit Authority buses bunching up on downtown Chicago's congested streets or the prospect of privatizing the Illinois Tollway.

The common thread in his reporting is a strong consumer-oriented focus, whether the issue is flight delays at O'Hare International Airport or railroad grade-crossing safety.

In 2001, a team of Tribune reporters co-led by Hilkevitch was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism for their series "Gateway to Gridlock,'' which chronicled the capacity crisis confronting the airline industry and the nation's commercial airports.

Hilkevitch, 52, also writes a weekly commuting column, called Getting Around, which allows him to interact more informally with readers and to bring their complaints about problems on Chicago-area roads and mass transit to the attention of the appropriate government agencies and, when necessary, to relentlessly prod those agencies until they do the right thing.

Hilkevitch lives in Lisle and commutes to work using Metra, the CTA and his own two feet.

His son, Nicholas, is an FAA-certified commercial pilot. He is completing his senior year at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and plans to pursue a career in aviation.

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